


Hard Yes on the Chicken Noodle Soup

by mintboy (orphan_account)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sick Character, Sick Karkat Vantas, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-10 10:00:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15947042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/mintboy
Summary: When Karkat is having a bad day, Dave tries his best ... and that counts for something, probably.For my boyfriend.





	Hard Yes on the Chicken Noodle Soup

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KittyMotor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittyMotor/gifts).



Dave shuffled where he stood, running a hand through his mussed hair. He was standing in front of the door to Karkat’s apartment, balancing an open cardboard box on one arm as he reached for the doorbell again. His phone was trapped between his teeth, despite one of his headphones still being in his ear. The entire ride to the building – which Dave had done via skateboard – he’d had Siri reading WebMD and Mayo Clinic on full volume, and after he’d stopped the text-to-voice, he didn’t have enough hands to slip his phone back into his pocket.

The door swung open, and Dave faltered, his skateboard falling out from under his arm and the box going unsteady. He scrambled, catching the box and slamming his foot down on the skateboard as it started to roll away.

He looked up to see Karkat standing in the doorway and flashed a nervous grin at his boyfriend, who was leaning against the doorframe with his arms wrapped around himself, his lips curled into a grimace.

“Hey,” Dave greeted, and Karkat stepped aside to let Dave kick his skateboard through the doorway and into the living room. He quickly followed suit, shoving the door closed the door behind him with his elbow.

“Sit down, babe,” he glanced over to Karkat, who was still leaning against the the door, “do you – do you want me to help?” He took a step forward, glancing down at the box in his arms. He put it down on the ground, moving beside Karkat and putting a careful arm around his back. The movement was slow and attentive.

“Fuck off,” he hissed, and Dave paused, ready to move his arm. He was usually better at reading tone, but his heart had stopped a little; he was kind of … really nervous about fucking up.

“Like, actually?”

Karkat shook his head, shoving his head into his boyfriend’s shoulder.

“…Then c’mere,” Dave moved his other arm under his knees, pulling him up into his arms. Karkat made an indistinct noise, burying his face in Dave’s chest. Dave held him a little tighter, walking him over to the couch and placing him down on a pile of pillows that his boyfriend had presumably made the night before.

Karkat curled up, and Dave suddenly remembered the box, backtracking to get it and put it down on the coffee table.

“What’s in there?” Karkat craned his head forward a little bit, the act of leaning appearing to be a little too much to handle. Dave rubbed the back of his neck.

“I uh…” Dave looked down, “I didn’t really know what to bring, exactly, so I kind of just brought everything I could find.”

Karkat scoffed, and gave a look as if to say, ‘hand me the fucking box’. Dave picked it up and placed it into Karkat’s lap, sitting down next to him and wrapping an arm around his shoulder instinctively; as if his body had a need to be as close to him as he could be at all times, and just fulfilled it without even a thought passing through his head.

Hands wandering through the box, Karkat began to laugh at its contents, and Dave looked away, obviously embarrassed. He’d quite literally shoved everything in there that he could think even might be useful – every tea he could find in his pantry, like four cans of soup, saltines, an old heating pad with the cord taped up with duct-tape to keep it working, like eighteen bottles of pills (from vitamins, to painkillers, to allergy medicine), four or five open bags of assorted candy, a bunch of shitty movies, a bottle of coke, ramen, single-serving popcorn bags, and the blanket off his own bed.

Karkat covered his mouth with the back of his hand while he cackled at the sheer amount of not-useful items Dave had brought with him.

“Is – is it really that bad?” Dave clenched his teeth and raised his eyebrows over his shades. Karkat reached over, pushing them up into his hair and tilted his head to motion him to come closer. As he leaned in, Karkat pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“It’s the thought that counts,” he muttered, his voice pained. He leaned his head back against the sofa, groaning.

Dave swallowed the thickness in his throat.

“Can I help?”

“You brought a heating pad, right?” Karkat tilted his head away, and Dave nodded – despite the fact his boyfriend couldn’t see it – and scrambled, pulling out the heating pad and plugging it in. He pushed it into Karkat’s lap, scooching closer to him and pressing a kiss on his temple. Karkat leaned into him.

“Thanks,” he grumbled. There was a moment of silence, and Dave felt compelled to fill it with something – not only because the quiet was uncomfortable, but because he was worried.

“Uhm, do you want … to watch a movie, or something? Or I could cook you something, if you haven’t eaten – like soup, or tea – well, you don’t really cook tea, but I mean like boil the water and like put the tea bag in the mug – shit, I should’ve brought mugs, unless you have them? And like, I didn’t ask you what kind of tea you wanted, but I brought a bunch, but, like, if you already have some, we can use that, ‘cause if you bought it you obviously like it, and like I brought some of my movies, but I know you have a Netflix account and we don’t really like the same movies, so we can do that, or –”

“Dave, for the love of god, shut the fuck up,” Karkat pleaded exasperatedly, sighing afterwards, “… something to eat would be nice, though.”

Dave nodded enthusiastically, digging through the box, starting to ramble again as he did so.

“I, uh, read that a couple things online, that, like, are supposed to be soothing, and I couldn’t find ginger tea, but I brought, like peppermint shit, and I found this ginger candy, which I thought you could have, and like, clear soup. Which was kind of confusing, because I don’t know what constitutes clear, but I had chicken-noodle, which is kind of transparent.”

“Okay, sure,” Karkat responded, sounding somewhat amused through the obvious pain he was in, and Dave glanced over, his shades falling back down on his face. He took them off entirely, putting them down on the coffee table.

“I could like, start the movie for you, and bring it all here when it’s done?”

“Just … be careful, would you? You’re a fucking disaster, I don’t need you screwing over my whole kitchen.”

“Yeah, okay, sounds good,” Dave lurched upward, box in his arms. He pulled out the ginger candies, handing them to his boyfriend, before trudging over to the kitchen and putting it on the counter. He shot back out again into the living room, rubbing his hands together.

“So, what d’ya want up in here? Some _Love Actually_? Some _Say Anything_? _Titanic_?”

“You don’t like any of those,” Karkat protested, curling up on himself a bit.

“I don’t have to, though. It’s your night, babe.”

“… Alright, but we’ll watch one of yours after.”

“Whatever you say,” Dave grinned, waltzing over to the TV. He quickly located 50 First Dates, which, though it was not one he had mentioned earlier, was a decent choice in his book. His brain was moving a little too fast to keep searching. He slid it into the DVD player, fucking around with the HDMI cables for a solid ten minutes before he got the movie started.

Once Karkat was somewhat settled, or a settled as he could be, Dave got to work on the soup and tea. The first rational thought to come to mind was that chicken noodle soup and peppermint tea weren’t exactly a fantastic combo. He settled for a glass of water instead, figuring his boyfriend was probably thoroughly dehydrated anyway.

He put the tea aside, knowing it would probably be used later.

Right, soup.

Making the soup was somewhat of a disaster. He’d put the pot on the stove, only to drop it, making what was probably the loudest clanging noise in existence. It prompted a very loud, “what the hell was that?” from the living room, to which he replied, “nothing,” and cleaned the pot, putting it back on the stove. He was sure there was something overly-confusing about the instructions, because it took him a while to realize “one can of water” meant to fill up the can with water and pour it into the pot. He’d spent about a solid five minutes holding the can up next to a glass of water and trying to match the height from the tap.

When the soup was finally done, and Dave had a fair amount of it splattering his shirt – which he ended up straight up taking off – he trudged back into the room, bowl of soup in one hand and glass of water in the other.

“What the fuck happened to you?” Karkat laughed from his spot on the couch. He was curled up on top of the pillows, hair pushed back against his head from sweating and arms wrapped around his sides. “Was it really that hard to make _soup_?”

“Hard maybe,” Dave retorted, settling down next to Karkat on the couch. His boyfriend was like a furnace against his chest. He set the soup down on the coffee table, and handed his boyfriend the water. After a couple sips, he decided he was finished, and Dave moved it, adjusting to allow Karkat to lean on him more.

Dave held him just tight enough to show his concern, but no so tight as to possibly hurt him. He ran a hand through Karkat’s messy hair, pressing kisses to his forehead and temples as his boyfriend tried to focus on the movie through it all. When it ended, Dave’s choice was _Groundhog Day_ , a choice that teetered between their interests. As the night progressed, and his boyfriend was half-asleep, Dave’s choices weaned, moving to _10 Things I Hate About You_ and then _The Proposal_ , knowing Karkat would enjoy them and most likely not notice through his fatigue that Dave didn’t give two shits about the movies they were watching – he just wanted Karkat to enjoy them.

It was clear his boyfriend wasn’t going to fall asleep entirely; probably because he was feeling like garbage. So, Dave held him, singing quiet love songs into his ear and pressing soft kisses all over his flushed cheeks.

Eventually, Karkat’s breaths evened out – at probably midnight – and if Dave had any idea, he’d probably be up again soon, but they could try. He turned down the volume on _Clueless_ , picking Karkat up and cradling up against his chest. Stirring slightly, Karkat groaned, but Dave was hoping he might just lull back away. He moved into the bedroom, which was peaceful and dark – cooler than the living room, too.

Pulling back the covers with some effort, Dave gently lowered Karkat into bed, crawling in after him and pulling him up against his chest. Threading a hand through his hair and pressing their foreheads together, he hummed softly.

“I love you,” Karkat muttered, pressing his face into Dave’s shoulder.

“I love you too,” Dave replied quietly between lines of “Moon River”, smiling against Karkat’s cheek.

And the night melted away slowly – but it eventually did, as all of them did. Because, sometimes, though it couldn’t fix everything, love was enough. And it continued to be, as it always was.


End file.
